The August MMMM, a co-creation with Andrew White, challenged solvers to find a hit song from 2021 that’s also the name of a well-known album. The grid has no obvious theme entries, but there are asterisks at the end of the clues for MIRROR and IMAGES (jointly clued as [Reflections]).

The grid is has left-right symmetry, which provides another clue. The path to the solution involves finding the symmetrically located squares that contain the same letter. There are exactly six such pairs. Proceeding down the grid, they spell out D-E-J-A-V-U. Deja Vu, this month’s answer, is a famous Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young album, and also a hit song by Olivia Rodrigo from 2021. Not surprisingly, I love the CSNY record, and Andrew is a big fan of Olivia Rodrigo – the perfect collaboration.

If last month wasn’t so challenging, I would have likely omitted the asterisks from the clues to MIRROR and IMAGES. But it’s summer, and I strongly prefer to have happier solvers! Apologies to those of you who would have preferred the meta to be even harder.

Meta Song:

“Which one should we cover?,” I asked the band. “Why not do both?” was the answer. We recorded this mash-up in a hotel room on tour, with Missy crushing the vocal.

Selected Solver Comments:

Strereto   Clever construction!  Thanks!

JanglerNPL   Nice respite from last month’s toughie   When one of the top meta solvers around says it’s a toughie, that means something!

Hpetrijr   I could not get the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” out of my head the entire time I was solving this. Thanks a lot!   A story for another time … but I once joined the Black Eyed Peas onstage in Central Park and sang this song with them. 

Rocklouder2424   I loved the way you constructed the Sondheim clue in light of the meta. Very clever.   Full credit to Andrew for that clue.

Maggie W.   I was surprised to see several other 2021 hits that are also famous albums: Lemonade, Rumo(u)rs, …   I received a number of submissions for both of those!

Alternative Music Clues:

Evan suggests cluing RODEO as [Lil Nas X song with a remix version in which Nas raps “I might spin the block on twelve horses”] and UTTER as [“___ Madness” (1986 Madness compilation album)].

Groaners:

HunterX   Hmmm. And I feel, like I’ve seen this one before. And it makes me wonder…   At least 10 other solvers made the same joke…

FunkyPhD   At first, I felt Helpless in Our House, but I decided to Carry On for another 4 + 20, which is a good thing to Teach Your Children.

A total of 300 solvers found their way to the correct answer this month. The average rating for the puzzle was 4.24 stars out of 5, and the average difficulty rating was 2.55. This month’s randomly chosen winner of an MMMM coffee mug is Pancho Harrison from Denver, CO. Thanks to Matt Gaffney for blogging the puzzle at Crossword Fiend, where you can rate the puzzle (thanks!) and/or leave a comment.

Thanks for playing and see you next month!